Tuesday, February 7, 2017

The Conservative leadership race will be decided by a preferential ballot, so the candidate with the broadest support and widest acceptability stands the best chance of winning. An analysis of fundraising data in the campaign suggests Maxime Bernier shares the most contributors with other candidates, giving him a potentially decisive edge.But Bernier's advantage might have been disrupted by the entry of Kevin O'Leary into the race in January.You can read the rest of this article here.

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Canada has 338 seats in the House of Commons. Each seat is worth 100 points for a total of 33,800. To win the leadership a candidate needs to win 16,901 points. Just as during a general election the Conservative leadership race is 338 separate elections. Points are scored individually by riding according to the share of the popular vote in the riding. So, if Candidate X receives 50% of the popular vote in Constituency Y She gets 50 points. If they receive 8% they get 8 points etc... the process continues until all votes throughout all 338 ridings are counted. If no candidate receives 50%+1 then the candidate with the lowest number of points is dropped from the count and his votes redistributed according to their second preference. The process of dropping candidates and redistributing their votes continues until a candidate receives 50%+1 of the allotted points; 19,601.

You get to rank every candidate on the ballot. First choice, second choice, third choice and so on. You can choose to rank as many individuals as you want or choose as few as one, only making 1 choice. During the counting process all first choice ballots are counted. The person with the lowest number of first choice ballots is removed, and all people who had selected his person have their vote transferred to their second choice candidate. The process is repeated over and over until only 1 person wins.

The Conservative convention will be decided on a preferential ballot, and each of Canada’s 338 ridings — big or small — has 100 points, for a total of 33,800.

On May 27, Conservatives across the country will vote, marking each name in order of preference. When the votes are counted in Toronto on the Saturday, officials will redistribute the second-preference votes of the candidate with the least amount of support and count again, dropping one uninspiring would-be leader at a time, until one of the candidates has 16,901 points.

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Details on the methodology of the poll aggregation and seat projections are available here and here. Methodology for the forecasting model used during election campaigns is available here.

Projections on this site are subject to the margins of error of the opinion polls included in the model, as well as the unpredictable nature of politics at the riding level. The degree of uncertainty in the projections is also reflected by the projections' high and low ranges, when noted.

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